Poetic Minimalism in Underground Press (Jan Satunovskij, Wsewolod Nekrasow)

The aims of this research paper are to describe poetic minimalism as a phenomenon and to analyse the poetics of key Russian minimalists published in samizdat. The structural method (Gasparov 1997) proposed by Gasparov will be used to analyze the poems. The texts will be regarded as a whole, so that all the components of the poem relate to each other. On texts with vague meanings, the “close reading” methods developed by Gershenzon (Gershenzon 1908) and Scherba will be applied (Scherba 1957). This method will be especially useful in the analysis of minimalist texts, as the individual word is interpreted in the context of neighboring words of the text passage. Intertextual and biographical methods will also be used where links with other texts or the author's biography are evident. This research paper will first discuss samizdat as a cultural phenomenon. Next, a brief theory about the features of minimalist poetry will be presented. Then there will be a great emphasis on an analysis of the poetry of the key minimalists who were published in samizdat: Vsevolod Nekrasov, Yan Satunovsky, Ivan Akhmetev etc.